Brownback signs school finance bill with add-ons

As House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, left, and Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, right watch, Gov. Sam Brownback signed into law Monday afternoon a school finance bill with controversial add-ons.

Flanked by legislative leaders, Gov. Sam Brownback signed into law Monday a school funding bill with controversial add-ons.

Brownback praised the Legislature for passing the bill one month after a Kansas Supreme Court ruling found the state wasn’t meeting its constitutional duty to fund schools equitably.

“This was a major accomplishment to move forward,” Brownback said. “I congratulate the leadership on being able to get that done.”

Brownback urged Kansans not to lose sight of the “overall picture” of the $129 million bill as a whole because of educator outcry over one amendment that removes state mandates for due process — commonly called tenure — for public school teachers.

But that controversy continued to dog the bill Monday, with a representative of a moderate group presenting a petition just before the signing ceremony asking Brownback to reconsider and a Topeka teacher saying he found the signing “disheartening.”

Jeremy Gibson, who works for Topeka Unified School District 501, was waiting outside the governor’s ceremonial room to voice displeasure over the tenure change itself and the way it was passed.

Gibson noted that it was attached to the funding bill with an early-morning weekend vote after hundreds of teachers showed up at the Capitol in a show of strength against it.

Aaron Estabrook, a co-founder of the Moderate Party of Kansas political action committee, presented the petition urging Brownback not to sign the bill over the tenure portion, but the decision to sign it had clearly been made by that point.

Brownback described it as a local control issue, saying individual school districts still would have the option to include the due process protections in their teacher contracts.

“I don’t think that eliminates anybody,” Brownback said in response to a question about whether the bill would render irrelevant the Kansas National Education Association, a teachers’ union that strenuously opposed the measure.

Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, defended the provision Monday, saying that administrators in her district had told her repeatedly that scuttling tenure was a necessary step to improving the quality of public education.

She also said she had no qualms about it being attached as an amendment rather than being vetted by committees and voted on based on its individual merits.

“We have talked about tenure reform for many, many years,” Wagle said.

In addition to Wagle, House Speaker Ray Merrick, Rep. Gene Suellentrop and state board of education member Steve Roberts also joined the governor for Monday’s signing.

Conspicuously absent were conservative leaders like the legislators who chair the House and Senate education committees. Both had advocated for the attachment of more controversial policy reforms, including an expansion of charter schools. So did Rep. Marc Rhoades, R-Newton, who resigned his chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee because he said he could not champion the bill the committee produced.

Merrick, R-Stilwell, said he had no hard feelings toward Rhoades but said he thought the appropriations committee “didn’t miss a beat” with Suellentrop, R-Wichita, sliding into Rhoades’ spot.

Merrick also bristled at the suggestion that the bill, which also had detractors among moderate Republicans, was divisive to the party.

“There’s 63 Republicans who voted for it, out of 92 (in the House),” Merrick said.

Wagle said she thought the prevailing sentiment in the party was relief.

“I think most legislators are feeling pretty good about complying with the court case,” Wagle said.

That wouldn’t include Democrats, none of whom voted for the final product.

House Minority Leader Paul Davis, D-Lawrence, who is running against Brownback for governor, said the governor showed a lack of leadership by failing to push for a “clean bill” that provided the court ordered funding without the policy add-ons.

“While the governor was nowhere to be found during the education debate, his allies tied unpopular, partisan policies to the essential dollars for our classrooms that he is now endorsing,” Davis said.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said he believed Brownback supported the tenure change, and other policy items like corporate tax breaks for private school scholarships to kowtow to conservative advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity in exchange for their financial support in his upcoming campaign.

“Gov. Brownback would have Kansans believe that signing this bill is a great accomplishment,” said Hensley, a longtime teacher in Topeka USD 501. “That’s not true. The reality is this bill barely passed both houses with no bipartisan support and strong opposition from our state’s education community.”

THE LEGISLATION

The school finance bill signed Monday includes:

■ More state funds for K-12 capital improvement projects and local property tax relief.